Case Number 22256: Small Claims Court

BERKELEY SQUARE: THE COMPLETE SERIES

The Charge

The loves, happiness and secrets of three Edwardian nannies.

The Case

It's turn-of-the-century Britain, and for three young women the possibilities
of a lucrative career in the nursemaid industry are limitless. Enter Matty,
Hannah and Lydia; set to take London by storm with their severe, pulled-back
hairstyles and awesome hats.

Matty, essentially the primary character, is ambitious and street smart, and
has scored a plum job in the house of a prime London mover and shaker. Lydia is
a plain, naïve farm girl, who inevitably gets a massive dose of culture
shock when she transfers to the big city. And Hannah is sort of a fugitive when
she arrives in London, hoping to get away from some sticky romantic shenanigans
with a man far above her social status; a baby is the fruit of her scandal.

The three rendezvous for new lives that are riddled with all manner of
romantic ups-and-downs, political trifling with the upper class, baby swaddling
and even a touch of...murder?

For your dime, you get about eight and half hours worth of Edwardian
melodrama and while I can certainly say I'm not the target audience for these
girls' adventures, I can still recognize the value of the 1998 miniseries
Berkeley Square. It's a nicely done period series, something that would
absolutely appeal to my grandmother. My wife watched these episodes with me and,
at first blush, I would have said this was right up her alley. Though she liked
it enough, she too landed on the assumption that Berkeley Square is ideal
for the stay-at-home matriarch. You know, the PBS Masterpiece Theater
crowd.

Again, not a slight. The show is solid, well acted and packed with enough
character development and story twists to keep the runtime motoring along
swimmingly. And though there might be a touch of darker storytelling,
Berkeley Square won't depress you; it's not a cynical drama, focusing
instead on placing a series of obstacles in front of our protagonists for them
to overcome using their wiles and friendship. One note: the series ends on a
downer, so unless there's a vibrant community of Berkeley Square fan
fiction out there somewhere, you might be a tad forlorn with how the story
wraps.